In Step With the Truth

 May 10 2021

Galatians 2

         As I said a few weeks ago I began my work in ministry being among the youth of the church. At one point I was on staff as the Youth Minister and as part of that position I was asked to help with lunch duty at the local Middle School which was just up the street. So, once a week I went and hung out with a bunch of sixth, seventh and eighth graders watching them as they ate and played out on the playground. In doing so I become aware of so many things the first being that everything you can eat is better with ranch dressing. I saw kids eat so much ranch dressing it made me a bit queasy watching them slurp up the stuff. The second thing that I became aware of, something I’m sure I knew all about when I was younger, is that lunchtime is the time when the student body gets separated into a bunch of neat and tidy divisions. There at the one table sat the jocks, the up and coming athletic heroes of the school and over there was a group of girls dressed to the nines with immaculate makeup and well groomed hair. And then there would be a table of band geeks and one for the science and math nerds and of course, there was one table for those who didn’t fit into any general category, the kids who seemed to be the rather invisible ones who slipped in and out of the room hoping they wouldn’t be noticed. Now, there was nothing more terrifying for one of these poor adolescent children that when they came to the end of the food line, their tray in hand loaded with food slathered in ranch dressing, of course, only to find that their respective table was too full for them to find a spot to sit at. Their face witnessed to their inner panic because they had to go somewhere and they had to decide quickly because there were always more classmates coming through the line. So, off they would go to sit in a place of exile with whoever hoping that their  good reputation would not be ruined by their hurried choice. Only then would the divisions that brought order to the cafeteria jungle would get a little blurred.

         Well, when I was told that I was to teach the confirmation class for the church where I was on staff, I remembered that cafeteria scene and as part of the confirmation lesson I decided to have the parents bring a meal that could be shared by the kids in the class. The only dividing I did was to have boys at one table and girls at another because you know, middle school boys are gross, end of story. Now, what ended up happening is that there at one table sat kids who were athletes, kids who were geeks, kids who were special needs and kids who just didn’t fit into any pigeon hole. I remember quite vividly one night looking through the window of the door where these kids were eating and seeing all these kids from very different walks of life eating and laughing and sharing life together. That perhaps was one of the best lessons that I ever had the pleasure of teaching.

         So, it goes without saying that there is something very important about being the church and our eating together. That is one of the sad side effects of the pandemic that its really hard for us to get together and eat as God’s family. There is a very good reason why eating together is so important in the life of the church and that is that eating together is a God given image of the wondrous future that God has planned for us. In the twenty fifth chapter of Isaiah we are given a glorious image when Isaiah declares, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food, of aged wine well refined.” So, let’s pause for a moment and imagine that here is God, the the God of the angel armies but he does not have his battle armor on but instead he has on an apron as he is busy grilling up the steaks, my version of rich food, and he is being the gracious host bringing out the very best for those who are guests at his table. Then Isaiah continues, “And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, ‘Behold , this is our God; we have waited on him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” As we read this it is interesting that as we think about being at this great banquet of fine food that God has set forth and of course as we eat we will swallow our food but what is going to be swallowed up we are told is instead, death. There as we sit and eat, God takes the corner of his apron and with great love takes and wipes the tears that death has caused us all our years and God tenderly will wipe them all away. This is what God means when he speaks of his salvation.

         Now, I think it is extremely important to understand these verses from Isaiah to grasp just why in our scripture for today that Paul is making such a big deal about Peter acting like a middle school kid who can’t figure out just which table he ought to be eating at. You see, it is very clear from reading this verse in Isaiah and many others throughout the Old Testament that God’s salvation is for all nations, the Jewish nation and every other nation on the planet; everyone is invited to the banquet. Now, Peter and his Jewish buddies would most likely have protested such a thought as they had been forbidden from eating at any table that wasn’t a Jewish table as their Law commanded. But what, or rather who they forgot was Jesus. It is Jesus who is God’s salvation that Isaiah spoke of that we are to be glad and rejoice in. As God’s salvation, Jesus through his death and resurrection ushered in the final days and because of this the church is called to live out the final reality captured in the image of a great picnic where all will eat together.

         You see, Paul, more than perhaps anyone else in the early church, understood just what was at stake when the people who called themselves followers of Jesus did not, in his words, have a conduct that was not in step with the truth of the gospel. This is why he had no fear when it came to getting in the face of Peter because Paul knew Peter stood condemned. Peter we remember was at the Council at Jerusalem and said there was to be equality among the Jews and Gentiles.This was perhaps the reason why Paul gave Peter an earful. While Peter was at the church at Antioch he never gave it a second thought about whether he should grab a bite with his non-Jewish brothers and sisters. All was all fine and dandy until the day that some Jewish big wigs from Jerusalem showed up and all of a sudden Peter grabs his lunch and hurries over to eat with them all because Peter was afraid of what they might say about his eating with those people. When Paul got wind of what Peter had done, he blew a gasket and the next time he saw Peter he laid into him like a man possessed. You see, when Peter, a man who was good friends with Jesus during his days of ministry decided to stop eating with the non-Jewish brothers and sisters then even people like Barnabas, Pauls good friend and missionary companion, started grabbing his lunch to go eat elsewhere. So, Paul called Peter on the carpet right there in front of everybody and said, “Peter if you a Jew, thought it ok to live like a Gentile because you know, you were eating with them, then why would you run off to huddle with your Jewish brothers implying to your Gentile brothers and sisters that they were second class followers of Jesus and if they wanted to fly first class then they should just become Jewish themselves?You have to admit, Peter’s actions were really messed up. What we have to keep in mind about Peter though is that the reason for him becoming such a major hypocrite was that he feared the Jewish big wigs who had come up to Antioch from Jerusalem. When we know that it was fear that motivated Peter to be so hypocritical it isn’t hard to hear Paul’s words from the end of the fourteenth chapter of Romans which says that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

         So, Paul points out that even someone like Peter could succumb to fear and through his fear end up in sin as he lived as if the salvation of Jesus had not changed everything. With Peter’s fear clearly in mind, Paul then goes on to state what the church at Galatia should have known that a person cannot act in a just manner simply by following the rules. No, what is needed to be just people is that they must place their faith in Jesus the anointed one of God. This little phrase, “faith in Jesus the anointed one of God” is loaded with meaning, pointing us to his being the Suffering Servant of God who suffered and died for each one of us to be for us the offering for the guilt of our sin. In doing so, Jesus became our hope of life because he died in our place. Faith then is what makes what we hope for, a life in right relationship with God, real to us. This faith is not of our on doing but is a gift from God who gives us the sight to at last see and live in the new creation, the new creation that came about at the resurrection of Jesus. All of this is what Paul means when he speaks of placing our faith in Jesus Christ. Yet Paul not only tells the readers of his letter that they are to know that a person becomes part of God’s just people by faith but they have also done what they know is the right thing to do and that is they have believed in Jesus Christ. So, they knew what they needed to do and they did what they knew to do which was to place their faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ, this is how the justice that God commands of his people will be achieved not by adhering to the laws commands because what the Law does is to point to the justice which is outside and beyond the law.

         So, when Paul pounds it home that the only way for God’s people to bring his justice upon the earth is through faith in Jesus Christ then he asks the rather obvious question, “But if in our endeavor to be just people in Christ, we too are found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Here I believe Paul is pointing back to his encounter with Peter, one who obviously had faith in Jesus Christ yet found himself driven by fear sinfully fracturing the unity of the church. This was certainly not what was supposed to happen. No, we are to understand that when Jesus died upon the cross he died in our place, dying the death that we deserved. This is why he is the acceptable offering we give back to God for our sin. So, if this is true, then we are to live knowing that we have died in Christ, died to a life condemned by the law, died to a life enslaved to sin. Now, because of Jesus, the old us is considered dead and in Jesus we have been risen with him from the dead to live a new life in God’s new creation.

         So, here in this second chapter of Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia, he has laid out the reason for his letter and in the last few sentences of this second chapter, Paul gives this church his plan to resolve the problem. It is clear that the people of this church have rightly understood that in order to be in right standing with God that they had to have faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing else could provide their salvation, not obeying the law, not hanging out with people who tried to keep the law, nothing could save them except what Jesus had accomplished through his death upon the cross and his resurrection from the dead. What Jesus had done is to create a new reality in which all could live, a reality that could be entered in through the gift of faith that God created within the hearts of people, a faith that gave people sight to see God’s new creation being brought about before their eyes. This is what was meant when Paul writes about being in Christ, it is an entering into a life united with Jesus and all those united to him as well, a life marked by the justice God commands. This is what is known as the first act of God’s grace, his justifying grace which in the Church of the Nazarene is also held to happen at the same time as our new birth and our adoption into the family of God. This first act of God’s grace when received by faith affects our relationship with our Heavenly Father, that because of the sacrifice of Jesus our sins are forgiven and we are given a not guilty verdict when Jesus is the perfect offering for us to present to God. This first act of grace is what Paul speaks of when he writes about being “in Christ”.

         Now, this is wonderful news, that we can have a right relationship with our Heavenly Father because of what Jesus has done for us. Yet, as amazing as this act of grace is, Paul teaches us throughout his writings that there is indeed more, a second act of grace and it is this second act of grace which is one of the main points of Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia. This is what Paul is referring to when he writes at the end of the second chapter, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.” First, by faith in the grace of Jesus Christ we find ourselves in Christ, in a right relationship, the same relationship Jesus, the Son has always had with the Father. But here Paul speaks of Christ in him which is different. Now, as Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians, God is within him to will and to work for his good pleasure. This experience of the Spirit of Christ uniting with our spirits empowers us so that no longer do we have to be enslaved to the power of sin that has long held us back but instead we are free to be God’s agents of righteousness as he has always created us to be. This experience is the center piece of the beliefs of the Church of the Nazarene, an experience they call entire sanctification. This is the possibility by faith of being able to completely overcome sin’s control so that the life and power of God make us completely holy unto God. While there is much mystery with this experience, what is clear is why Paul speaks of this experience here. Listen to what John writes in the fourth chapter of his first letter, “So, we have come to know and to believe the love God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. By this is love perfected in us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because as he is so also are we in the world. There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear.”You see, Paul knew that when we abide in God and God abides in us, this is when we realize that this is the love we were meant to experience; this love we experience when communing with God, this is as perfect as love can get. And it is this perfect love that so fills us up that there just is no longer any room for fear to find a place to live in us. Fear is thrown out because love has filled us up. What a contrast to Peter who out of fear broke the fragile unity of the early church. Pauls answer to this controlling fear is Christ in us, a controlling and compelling love. This is what Jesus hoped for when he prayed with his disciples on the night he was betrayed as found in the seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel “The glory that you have given me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me, so that they are perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” The oneness of the early church that was broken by the fear of Peter is restored as Jesus tells us, when Christ is in us, so that we have a perfect oneness not only with each other but also so that we might have a oneness with God. This is the way the world will witness that something has entered into our world, a salvation to be received with joy and gladness. In this way we can know we are loved in the very same way that Jesus, the Son of God has always been loved by our Heavenly Father. This is the perfect love that casts out all fear, the fear which is the root of all sin, the sin whose price is death. This then is our hope that one day at the great banquet we will celebrate the promised end of death. To God be the glory!Amen.